Chansons d’été (4): Arthur Honegger

In January 1920, a Parisian journalist named Henri Collet proclaimed Les Six Francais, soon to be known as Groupe des Six, bracketing six French composers together as the avantgarde of the new decade. One of the members was then 25-year-old Arthur Honegger, who (unlike the others) admired Wagner and Debussy, and put on his kids gloves when if came to iconoclasm: »There’s no point knocking down doors you can open«, he would state 30 years later. In the summer of the same year, he wrote his ultra romantic Pastorale d’été, Poème symphonique, epigraphed by a line from Rimbaud: »J’ai embrassé l’aube d’été …« One flute, one oboe, one clarinet, one bassoon, one horn, plus strings: This is the first light of a warm summer day, and there’s few chances it will get more beautiful again.Orchestre National de l’ORTF/ conducted by Jean Martignon – Pastorale d´été